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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Viegland Park

This place was really great. It was created by Gustav Vigeland the sculptor and there are literally TONS of sculptures (ahhahaha) across an 80 acre park. It's really quite amazing. He built the thing in the 20's...in my opinion a lot of the sculptures are quite provocative even by today's standards (American though my standards may be). I'm a little kid really because I was like giggling at a lot of this stuff, and then my 32-year-old self finally did appreciate it for the beautiful art that it is. But the giggling comes first.

This next one is called the Monolith. Here are some pearls from Wikipedia about it:

"Construction of the massive monument began in 1924 when Gustav Vigeland himself modeled it out of clay in his studio in Frogner. The design process took him ten months, and it is speculated that Vigeland had the help of a few sketches drafted in 1919. The model was then cast in plaster. In the autumn of 1927 a block of granite weighing several hundred tons was delivered to the park from a stone quarry in Halden. It was erected a year later and a wooden shed was built around it to keep out the elements. Vigeland’s plaster design was set up next to it to give reference to its sculptors. Transferring of the figures began in 1929 and took 3 stone carvers 14 years to accomplish. On the Christmas of 1944 the public was allowed to admire The Monolith and 180,000 people crowded the wooden shed to get a close look at the creation. The shed was demolished shortly thereafter. The Monolith towers 14.12 meters (46.32 ft) high and is composed of 121 human figures rising towards the sky. This is meant to represent man’s desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine. It portrays a feeling of togetherness as the human figures embrace one another as they are carried toward salvation."

(Looks like a buncha naked people crawlin all over eachother to me.) But isn't it gorgeous!??